Gardaí investigating a complaint from a woman about a hospital in which her late husband picked up MRSA have now sent a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Dr Teresa Graham, from Tramore, Co Waterford, says her husband picked up the superbug while he was a cancer patient at Waterford Regional Hospital.
She made a formal complaint to gardaí last June about the hospital under Section 30 of the 1947 Health Act.
Under this section it is an offence for an individual who is caring for another person with an infection not to take reasonable precautions to prevent the infected person from spreading their infection to others.
Dr Graham said yesterday she had now been informed by her local Garda station that a file on the matter had been sent to the DPP.
Her husband died in October 2004.
Dr Graham, who is a spokeswoman for the MRSA and Families Network, said she was aware of at least one other family who had also made a complaint to gardaí in respect of a family member in Kilkenny who had picked up MRSA and had since died.
Anyone convicted under Section 30 of the 1947 Health Act would face a maximum fine of only €50. The Oireachtas health committee has passed a motion calling for the Act to be amended.
MRSA is an antibiotic resistant superbug and can prove fatal if it gets into the bloodstream through an open wound. There were close to 600 cases of MRSA bloodstream infections reported by Irish hospitals last year.
Earlier this week a coroner's court in Cork returned a verdict of death by MRSA infection in the case of Valentine Ryan (74) from Carrigaline, who died in April 2002. It is believed to be the first time such a verdict was recorded at an inquest in the State.
Well over 100 people who picked up MRSA in hospitals in the State have already instructed solicitors to take civil actions for damages on their behalf against the hospitals involved.
But the MRSA and Families Network called at its annual conference two weeks ago for a redress scheme for those who were infected in hospital to prevent them having to go to Court.
However Minister for Health, Mary Harney told the Dáil, in reply to a parliamentary question, her Department has no plans to set up a redress board to compensate people who have contracted MRSA.
Neither did she plan to set up a judicial inquiry into the non-implementation of national guidelines for the control of MRSA drawn up in 1995, something the MRSA and Families Network has been seeking.